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The world has many wonders. Therefore, to read a newspiece of a man who had his thumbs surgically altered to suit the iPhone better is to think, this guy is crazy. But the story in itself is plausible.

Generally, stories published in a straight news category are intended to be taken seriously. There is one exception: any story published on the 1st of April may be a jest, and everybody knows it. But it is not enough, generally, that people know that the day is a jest day: a serious paper litters the April’s Fool story with blatant clues. For example, a Finnish story last April said that the principals of the story enjoyed their traditional herring in muddy water – referring to the traditional Finnish April’s Fool refrain: “April’s Fool, April’s Fool, eat herring and wash it down with muddy water!” (“Aprillia aprillia, syö silliä, juo kuravettä päälle!”)

Perhaps the original story, published by a community newspaper, contains clues that are visible to the local readers. Perhaps there is something about the locale of the story that tells the locals that this is a false story. Or perhaps the names are ridiculous to native speakers of the American language. Certainly, the paper seems to think that the story contains sufficient clues: Careful reading of the piece makes it clear to any critical consumer of information that the piece is pure humor and not news or reported as fact, the editor claims.

The original story is in the “news” category. It is written in a flip style, but then again, many “the world is crazy” style stories are. I have now read the story twice, and I find in it no clue that the story is a hoax (or satire, as the newspaper in question likes to style it).

The paper made an error in judgment, that the story would only be read in the community where the story is published. They forgot that we all like to read stories of crazy people who live far away.

The editor ridicules us for not noticing the satire, but the real joke is on them: they did not have the balls to acknowledge their mistake. I acknowledge mine. I was fooled. Anybody got some muddy water to spice up the herring I’m having for dinner this evening?

I received some time ago (don’t remember exactly when, I’ve since deleted that mail) a mail from Tux Games informing me that a mail that I (supposedly) had sent them is being held pending my confirmation that the message is not spam.

Now, I have never ever before heard of Tux Games, so it seems likely that the message being held indeed is spam – and was not, in fact, sent by me. Email source forgery is trivial if you know how the system works, and spammers routinely forge email sender information.

Tux Games is itself engaging in spamming by sending unsolicited confirmation mails to people. I replied to the mail saying so, and asking them to stop doing this. The message bounced.

Today, I received another message from Tux Games. The original message is still in the queue, and has not been read by a human. I am asked to confirm it is not spam. It is tempting to do so.